Blame, no progress in federal shutdown

Wednesday

Oct 2, 2013 at 12:01 AMOct 2, 2013 at 1:48 PM

WASHINGTON - The impasse in Congress that has shut much of the federal government was no closer to being resolved yesterday as the Senate turned down a proposal from House Republicans to enter negotiations.

WASHINGTON — The impasse in Congress that has shut much of the federal government was no closer to being resolved yesterday as the Senate turned down a proposal from House Republicans to enter negotiations.

Republicans remained firm in their insistence that congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama agree to significant rollbacks in the Affordable Care Act, which began open enrollment yesterday, even as many government operations ground to a halt.

Democrats said they would not be forced into chipping away at the law as a condition of enacting a budget to keep the government running.

Speaking from the Rose Garden at the White House, Obama said he would not give in to unreasonable demands by “one faction, of one party, of one house of Congress, in one branch of government.”

“Congress generally has to stop governing by crisis,” he added. “It is a drag on the economy. It is not worthy of this country.”

He also said that with hundreds of thousands of federal employees being furloughed nationwide, many of them civilian defense workers, those workers, their families and the small businesses that rely on their patronage would be hurt.

It took less than a half-hour for the Senate to dispose of the House proposal in a 54-46 party-line vote. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, D-Nev., swatted it down with a quick jab.

“The government is closed because of the irrationality of what’s going on on the other side of the Capitol,” Reid said.

House leaders presented to their rank and file a plan to bring to the floor spending bills to fund veterans’ programs, the National Park Service and federally funded services in Washington. The idea was to revive the programs most obviously affected by the shutdown while pressing for negotiations on a broader reopening of the government tied to changes to the health-care law.

But the measure failed in the House yesterday. It won a majority vote, 252-176, but it had been placed on a legislative fast track that needed a two-thirds majority to pass.

The White House has said Obama would veto any legislation that would restore funding only to certain parts of the government.

“It seems like a logical plan to me,” said Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Cincinnati. “We’re not trying to shut down the entire government. The thing we object to is Obamacare.”

“My goal is to get the government back open,” said Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Upper Arlington.

Stivers and Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Genoa Township, argued that Democrats including Reid have been loath to negotiate. They say they’ve loosened their original demand to defund Obama’s health-care law, noting they’d be fine with a delay in the individual mandate. But Reid, they said, has been resistant.

“We’ve moved,” said Tiberi, arguing that Republicans would settle at this point for making the health-care law “a little less bad.”

One senior Republican, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the House Budget Committee chairman, indicated that the stalemate could go on for at least two more weeks until the nation reaches its borrowing limit. He said the deadline to address the debt limit could be “the forcing mechanism to bring the two parties together.”

Yet House Republicans also vow to oppose an essential increase in the debt ceiling unless Obama delays the health-care law.

With tangible signs of the shutdown beginning to hit television and circulate online — images showing the Lincoln Memorial cordoned off in yellow police tape and tourists being turned away from the Statue of Liberty — members of Congress were showing indications that pressure to strike a deal was getting hotter.

House Republican leaders staged a photo op in a gilded room in the Capitol overlooking the National Mall, where they sat at a half-empty table.

“The way to resolve our differences is to sit down and talk,” said Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., the No. 2 House Republican. “And as you can see here, there’s no one here on the other side of the table.”

The Republican leaders in both houses have accused their Democratic counterparts and Obama of failing to entertain even the smallest changes to the health-care law, which they have said is deeply flawed and harmful to businesses.

But among the rank and file, more and more Republicans are saying they believe they have no cards left to play.

“We’ve called their bluff and they didn’t blink,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. “At this point, it would kind of strain logic to assume that going deeper into this when Republicans are likely to get the blame will benefit us more.”

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said Republicans are running out of options. “In this case, we’ve got no leverage,” he said. “They’ve got 100 percent of the leverage.”

In the House, Rep. Scott Rigell, R-Va., became the latest Republican to break ranks with his leadership, saying it was time to pass a stand-alone budget bill. “We fought the good fight,” he said.

Democrats have begun casting the debate over the budget as something much larger than the six weeks of funding that the current legislation would support. They have repeatedly said that the hard line they have taken is meant to bring an end to Washington’s vicious cycle of governing by crisis.

“For one party, in one branch of Congress, to hold this country hostage in order to override that constitutional process — disrupting the lives of federal workers and the American people who depend on their services — is unconscionable,” said Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash.

Information from Reuters and from Jessica Wehrman of the Dispatch Washington bureau was included in this story.